Welcome to the official website of the 35th annual meeting of the Association for Moral Education!

The Association for Moral Education (AME) provides an interdisciplinary forum for professionals interested in the moral dimensions of educational theory and practice.

The theme of the AME 2009 annual conference stresses the importance of tolerance as a moral value for democracy. The right of individuals and groups to live in accordance with their own ideas in private and public spaces is regarded as a central moral and political value in the Netherlands since its struggle for independence during the Eighty Years' War in the 16th and 17th centuries.

A civic community combines high tolerance with a strong community, but both are nowadays under pressure in the Netherlands and worldwide. The conference aims to stimulate discussions about recent scientific findings on the emergence and development of tolerance and their consequences for moral education. We welcome contributions on moral development, moral education or citizenship education, including contributions not directly related to the main theme.

The annual meeting of the AME will be held at Utrecht University, Utrecht, in the Netherlands. It is co-sponsored by the Department of Developmental Psychology of Utrecht University and the University for Humanistics. The meetings will take place at the Academiegebouw (University Hall) in the center of the old city. There is hotel accommodation available near the Academiegebouw and within short walking or shuttle distance.

Kohlberg Memorial Lecture

There is More to Morality than Mere Genes. Genetic, Dispositional and Contextual Determinants of Children's Pro-Social Behavior

Prof. dr. Marinus van IJzendoorn, Leiden University

The early roots of altruistic or prosocial behavior may be traced to genetic and environmental factors shaping the individual's inclination to spend resources without the expectation of personal gain. The idea is that stable individual differences would exist in the degree to which individuals commit themselves to altruistic or prosocial acts. These stable differences might be based on underlying differences in genetic make-up or in moral reasoning capacities. In contrast to this trait-like interpretation of moral behavior, prosocial behavior might also be considered to be largely shaped by the demand-characteristics of the specific situation in which the person may or may not show altruism. Prosocial behavior would then be more contextual than genetic or dispositional. In this presentation the early roots of donating behavior and empathic concern are discussed as examples of altruistic, prosocial behavior. Central question is what the most important factors are in predicting children's empathic concern for another individual's distress, and their donation of scarce resources to the cause of a well-known charity (UNICEF): genetic differences, differences in disposition (attachment and temperament), or contextual differences.

• Brenda Almond (University of Hull), Cultural identity, toleration and contrasting family norms.
• Kees van den Bos (Utrecht University), Moral intuitions and moral deliberation: Studies on disinhibition, embodiment, and unconscious thinking pertaining to moral judgment.
• Willem Koops (Utrecht University), A history of freedom and tolerance in Dutch education.
• Kees Schuyt (Raad van State), Toleration, the actual history of an idea.

• Daniel Brugman, Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Chair
• Jan Boom, Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University
• Doret de Ruyter, Department of Education, VU University Amsterdam
• Bert Musschenga, Department of Philosophy, VU University Amsterdam
• Wiel Veugelers, University for Humanistics, Utrecht and Graduate School of Teaching and Learning, University of Amsterdam
• Cees Klaassen, Department of Educational Science, Radboud University, Nijmegen